Marnia Lazreg was an historical sociologist who made fundamental contributions to a wide variety of fields, including the study of women, Foucault, torture, and France’s colonization of her native Algeria. She was possibly the only Algerian woman of the pre-independence generation to obtain a PhD in the United States and pursue an academic career there, publishing academic work exclusively in English for more than fifty years. She was also a novelist who wrote under the pen name Meriem Belkelthoum. She died this past January.
Celebrating Marnia Lazreg
Thursday, May 30, 2024
2:00PM to 5:00PM (US-Eastern)
at
Studio Gather
45 Rockefeller Plaza / 630 Fifth Avenue
(5th Ave bet. 50th & 51st)
27th Floor
New York, NY 10111
Map
or
Online via Zoom
(please RSVP to receive a link)
The Washington Post
“She ranked among the most respected academic voices on women’s affairs in North Africa and helped expand Arab viewpoints in Western feminist scholarship.”
The New York Times
“Lazreg’s books were unusual because she herself was unusual: an Algerian-born scholar . . . who was based in America and who wrote in English from a feminist, anticolonial perspective.”
El Moudjahid
“Elle a démontré, dans le cadre de ses investigations, que les femmes musulmanes ne sont pas simplement des sujets passifs, mais des actrices essentielles dans la construction de leur société.”
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Marnia was a “pathbreaking historical sociologist who made fundamental contributions to a wide variety of fields, including international development, second-wave feminism, torture, colonialism, Islam, and Foucault studies.”
Hunter College, CUNY
A “trailblazing . . . Sociology professor” and “gifted theorist”.
A Call for Recollections of Marnia Lazreg
Donations
Donations in memory of Marnia may be made to the New York Public Library here.
Marnia could often be found writing in the Rose Main Reading Room.
Marnia’s Books
Classes / Women / Torture / the Veil / Foucault / Islamic Feminism
Islamic Feminism and the Discourse of Post-Liberation: The Cultural Turn in Algeria
Foucault’s Orient: The Conundrum of Cultural Difference, From Tunisia to Japan
The Eloquence of Silence:
Algerian Women in Question
Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad
Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women
“My work reflects my horror of dogma, be it theoretical, methodological or political.”
Marnia Lazreg
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